My first Arduino shield adds 70 outputs can drive LEDs, motors, etc

This Arduino shield uses 3 or 4 Arduino digital pins which connect to 2 M5451 chips. These chips provide 35 outputs each (70 total) which are presented using IDE headers so you can just plug in an IDE ribbon cable to bring the signal where ever you want. Driving lots of LEDs and a stepper motor (through a L298N motor driver chip) is shown. More info in my blog at http://effluviaofascatteredmind.blogspot.com/

Category:

Science & Technology

Tags:

• Arduino
• LED
• stepper motor
• M5451
• L298N
• PWM
• pulse width modulation

[Shakespeare1612]

This was your FIRST project? WOW? How many hours do you have in this thing? Did you not see "blink" in the examples folder? WOW.

[gandrewstone]

@Shakespeare1612 this is blink*70 :-) And you can stack them for the equivalent of hundreds of blink. You can't do that with straight Arduino...

[gandrewstone]

Thanks for the tip! It is a strange name for English speakers to parse.

[speedracerx808]

you mention being able to connect it to the PWM for the arduino, does this mean that all 70 pins become PWM capable? Essentially I wanna make a RGB addressable strip for a project. Similar to your other video with the green led strip. sorry if this isnt that clear. i'm still learning how all this electrical engineering works. thanks

[gandrewstone]

@speedracerx808 Yup. The latest code is capable of PWMing all 70 pins individually at 10000 transitions per second. So you can make RGB colors. Note that an RGB LED requires 3 pins -- one for red, 1 for green, 1 for blue. So one board drives 70/3 RGB LEDs. Also note the latest version of the PCB integrates an Arduino, remote control receiver, ambient light sensor and matrix driver on a single PCB so its a lot cooler.

[BentQuarter]

your saying arduino wrong. its ard-wee-no NOT ar-do-wee-no

[andruha11234]

that is fucking genius!

[mrnobody669]

you are INSANE!!!!! that's awesome!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

[gandrewstone]

@speedracerx808 I haven't put it up on Maker's Market yet because I have limited quantities.  But that is normally where you'd find it. talk to me at gandrewstone at hnail.dom (but subtract one from the 1st 2 letters and the 7th -- you know the big search company messaging). Sorry about the obfuscation; it won't let me post otherwise.

[speedracerx808]

@speedracerx808 oh yeah, and where can I buy this? or do i have to make it myself?

[speedracerx808]

@gandrewstone awesome! yes i do know that they require multiple pins, and thats why i asked, because a standard arduino didnt have enough PWM pins on a single board for what i wanted. i was looking for a solution to do at least 10 RGB lights with a single arduino. 23 leds are way more that enough for me. so this looks like it will work for me. I look forward to playing around with one soon. thanks :)